


Alone on Christmas

by walkingonthestars



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Christmas, LadyNoir - Freeform, Light Angst, Rooftop Conversation, is it really a fic of mine if there isnt a late night ladynoir rooftop conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:07:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28275831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkingonthestars/pseuds/walkingonthestars
Summary: In which Ladybug checks up on a lonely black cat superhero one Christmas night.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 8
Kudos: 61





	Alone on Christmas

The scent of cookies in the oven wasn’t out of the ordinary when one lived in a bakery, but it was always somehow much more magical on Christmas. Marinette’s parents had closed up shop for the day to spend the day baking cookies not for customers, but for themselves. Any business-minded person would have chided them for missing out on all the potential revenue-- Paris’ best bakery, closing on a holiday that had everybody craving pastries and baked goods? Insanity.-- but as successful as Tom and Sabine’s bakery was, they were never just focused on business. There were always more important things to focus on. 

The day had been spent opening presents, playing video games, baking, and playing more video games, in that order. After an intense final battle between Marinette and her father in the latest Ultimate Mecha Strike game-- which Marinette had unwrapped hours earlier-- the members of the Dupain-Cheng household had finally begun to settle down, opting to play a cheesy Christmas movie on the TV instead of a flashy robot fighting game. It served as nice background noise for cleaning up all the baking supplies and ingredients in the kitchen and the stray ribbons and wrapping paper on the living room floor. 

As Marinette picked up the scraps of paper, she paused for a moment to look out the window. She smiled. Paris was always beautiful, no doubt, but it was especially pretty on Christmas. There were more lights, and those lights were more colorful, and those colorful lights illuminated the happy faces of the people who walked by, always holding gifts or food or another person’s hand. And while in past years she never thought to look at the city’s rooftops, she found herself looking there now. Being Ladybug for the past few years had given her a second home on the rooftops. Whether she was jumping and swinging across them or mellowly sitting on the edge of one of the roofs, she was always happy up there, up there with-- 

She squinted. “Cat Noir?” she said aloud. 

Behind her, sweeping flour off the kitchen counter, her mother looked up. “What was that, honey?” 

“Oh! Uh--” Marinette turned around to smile at her mother, then turned back around to squint harder and make sure she was seeing correctly. Yup, that was Cat Noir, sitting on a rooftop a block or two away from her. 

_ Why is he alone up there on Christmas?  _

“Marinette?” Sabine said. 

Marinette whipped back around and smiled again, probably too wide. 

“Bathroom!” she yelled, still smiling. She tried not to let the smile turn into a cringe. 

Sabine cocked her head to the side. “Bathroom?” 

“Yeah! Bathroom! Gotta go to it.” Marinette dropped the wad of wrapping paper scraps she’d been collecting and quickly made her way to the staircase. “I’ll finish cleaning later!” 

As she bounded up the steps, she caught the first part of a comment between her parents about how she must have eaten too many cookies and stifled a groan. 

Once her room’s hatch door was closed beneath her, Tikki flew out in front of Marinette. 

“What’s wrong?” the kwami asked as Marinette headed for her bedroom window to peer outside again. 

“He’s still there…” Marinette murmured. She turned to Tikki. “Cat Noir is just sitting out there, alone. On Christmas!” She scrunched her face. “Do you think he’s okay?” 

Tikki flitted to the window to peek out herself. “I don’t know…” She looked up at Marinette. “Do you want to check?” 

“You think I should?” 

“I don’t think it would hurt. Besides,” Tikki reasoned, “it would be nice to wish him a merry Christmas regardless.” 

Marinette looked back out the window, at the silhouette of a boy with cat ears and a tail, sitting all alone in a vast city skyline. She nodded to herself. 

“I’ll be quick. Don’t want to worry my parents.” Tikki smiled and nodded, and Marinette readied herself in her usual stance. “Tikki, spots on!” 

Ladybug would be eternally thankful for the supersuits’ resistance to cold. Below her, the people walking on the streets were decked out in thick, puffy, insulated coats, telling her logically that the air outside wasn’t the most comfortable. She couldn’t feel it for herself, though, and she knew that Cat Noir couldn’t either. It made her feel better knowing that even if he was sitting out here alone, he wasn’t cold. But if he wasn’t cold then he was probably perfectly content to sit there for as long as possible, and that didn't do anything good for her mind. 

A few swings later, she landed behind him.

"Merry Christmas," she said, and she heard him take a sharp breath as he turned around. His eyes, wide at first, softened when he realized it was her.

"Yeah, I guess it's pretty merry," he responded, though his voice was pensive-- solemn, even. Two words Ladybug rarely used to describe her partner. He scooted to the side ever so slightly, making room for her to sit, and asked, "any reason you're up on a rooftop right now instead of at home eating cookies, or whatever it is people do on such a happy holiday?" 

"I came to ask you that same question," Ladybug said, sitting down next to him. "I saw you up here so I thought I'd say hello. My family thinks I'm in the bathroom right now."

Cat Noir just hummed in acknowledgement. The two sat in silence for a few seconds, letting their feet dangle off the edge of the roof. 

"So…" Ladybug said, turning to look at her partner's face, "why  _ are _ you up here? Does your family celebrate Christmas?"

He nodded slowly. "We observe it, if that's what you mean. Not much celebrating going on in that house, though."

Ladybug frowned. She'd always imagined Cat Noir's home life to be as happy and boisterous as he always was. Of course, she always forced herself to  _ not  _ wonder about the boy's home life that much, lest she somehow end up accidentally discovering his identity. Still, a lack of holiday celebration in the Cat Noir household came as a surprise.

"What about you?" Cat Noir asked, snapping Ladybug out of her thoughts. "How's your family on this very merry eve?"

"They're, uh…" Ladybug faltered, not knowing how to continue. Aside from the usual  _ we can't know anything about each other's lives _ thing, she was afraid that telling Cat Noir how joyful and spirited her parents were would make him sad. But she also didn't want to lie to him, and she knew that avoiding the question entirely would likely make him feel even more lonely than she already suspected he was. 

Fortunately, Cat Noir seemed content to carry the conversation himself.

"You always struck me as the kind of person who puts their Christmas tree up on November first. Am I correct in thinking that?" 

Ladybug smiled at the safer question. "If I had it my way, it would be up in October." 

That got a soft chuckle from her partner, who kicked his heels ever so slightly against the brick wall underneath them. 

"What about you?" Ladybug asked. "I mean, your family aside-- whatever the situation is with them-- if you had it  _ your  _ way, would the tree be up earlier? Or are you one of those people who makes fun of people like  _ me _ for getting into the Christmas spirit so early?" 

A slight smile on his face, Cat Noir considered the question. "I don't know," he said. "Truthfully, just having the tree up at all is enough." Then his smile, already so small, disappeared as he mumbled, "and it's not even the tree that I really care about, so much as…" 

He didn't finish the sentence. 

Ladybug watched as he seemed to retreat back into whatever thoughts were consuming his brain. After a moment of deliberation in her own head as to whether she should probe, she decided to risk it. 

"So much as what?" She asked softly. 

Thankfully, Cat Noir didn't seem to mind her asking, and just rubbed the back of his neck as he answered. "I don't know. It's just… what good is a tree if no one's gonna be happy decorating it, or sitting by it to open presents? And what good are presents if you already have all the material things you want or need, but all you really want is…" he trailed off, seeming to shrink into himself ever so slightly. He averted his eyes. "I'm probably saying too much. Sorry." 

"It's fine," Ladybug said, mainly out of reflex because none of what she just heard was fine at all. What was going on-- or  _ not _ going on, it seemed more like-- in his house? 

She spent the next few seconds trying again to decide if she should probe further, trying to figure out if there was any way she could solve this problem, but Cat Noir broke the silence before she could.

"You should go back home now. Your family's probably wondering what's taking you so long in the bathroom."

"Yeah…" Ladybug said softly. And then she decided to ask a dangerous question. "I know you said your family isn't celebrating much, but surely they care that you're not with them right now, right?" 

The question was far too much, she realized as soon as she finished asking it. For a moment, she feared he might get angry at her-- she saw his jaw clench and his body stiffen. But he quickly relaxed again and answered her with a resigned smile.

"Don't worry about me, Ladybug,” he said. “My family's alright. Believe me, if they knew I wasn't in the house right now, they'd have already covered every square meter of Paris with missing posters of my face." He brought his legs up and picked himself up to stand. "And since that's a face you're not allowed to see, I suppose I should go back home to make sure that doesn't happen."

Ladybug got up too. For a brief moment, the two heroes stood and faced each other, not saying a word. Then Cat Noir extended his staff and positioned himself to vault away.

"Merry Christmas, Ladybug. I… I really appreciate you coming out here to say hello."

Ladybug felt her face warm in a blush. Her first internal reaction to this was one of dread-- her partner usually took any chance to tease her whenever she blushed at something he said-- but she pushed the feeling aside. 

"Any time, Kitty," she responded with a soft smile. "Merry Christmas." 

"Merry Christmas," Cat Noir echoed back. With a final tiny nod, he extended his baton and leapt away, leaving Ladybug standing by herself on the rooftop for a few long moments before finally reminding herself to go back home herself. 

She swung back to her balcony and opened the skylight to step into her room. Beneath her, she could still hear her parents talking and the movie playing. 

"Spots off," she whispered. Her suit and mask dissipated and left her as regular old Marinette again, complete with a little red kwami zipping up to face her. 

"How was it?" Tikki asked. 

The muffled sounds of her parents and the TV in the living room took up most of the space in Marinette's head now, but she found room to register and respond to Tikki's question. 

"Good, I guess…" 

Downstairs, her father laughed a big, booming laugh, and her mother's summery chime of a laugh followed it. Marinette took a deep breath and sighed. 

"Do you think when all this is done, when we've defeated Hawk Moth and we can finally know each other in real life… do you think Cat Noir would like it here for Christmas?" 

Tikki zipped closer to Marinette and nuzzled against her cheek. "I think he would," she said. 

Marinette smiled. Maybe next year everything would be over. Maybe next year they could spend the holiday together in a warm house, filled with life. Maybe his family could be there as well-- maybe they just need a little extra love too, whoever they are. 

Maybe. 

With a short sigh, Marinette lifted her door and went back downstairs. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hahahaaa this was actually the first fic I ever wrote for this fandom. I wrote it back in March, I think, when I was randomly in a really Christmassy mood, but I figured it would be weird for me to post it when it wasn't actually the Christmas season. I can't believe I had enough patience to wait all these months to finally post it LOL
> 
> I'm hamsternamedmarinette on Tumblr!


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